This invention pertains to building frame structure, and more particularly to unique column, beam, cross-bracing and interconnect structures employable in such structure. A preferred embodiment of the invention, and a manner of practicing it, as well as several illustrated modifications, are illustrated and described herein.
Proposed, among other things, according to the invention is a new, elongate column structure which is formed from an assembly of plural, elongate, angle-iron-like components that are united by bolting them together through interposed spacers which help to define the final configuration of the column. In a preferred column embodiment of the invention, four such angle-iron-like components are employed, with each of these taking the form, generally, of an elongate, right-angle, angle-iron section of otherwise conventional construction, and with cross-like spacers (one or more) interposed and holding these components apart. These four elongate components are arranged in such a fashion that their legs essentially radiate in a star-like manner from the long axis of the assembled column. Each leg in each angle-iron-like component confrontingly faces one other leg in one adjacent such component.
The angle-iron-like components and the spacer, or spacers, are nut-and-bolt connected to create a frictional interface between these elements. Depending upon the tightness employed in such connections, the level of frictional engagement can be adjusted. The assembled combination of angle-iron-like components and spacers forms a generally cross-shaped (transverse cross section) column assembly. Each column assembly is also referred to herein as a column structure, and as a column.
Given this type of column assembly, it will be apparent that there are spaces or recesses provided in the regions between confronting legs in an assembled column. In a building frame structure, and still referring to a preferred form of the invention, these recesses are employed to receive modified and inserted end regions (or extensions) of the central webs in elongate I-beams. These same recesses also receive the ends of cross-braces which, in a preferred embodiment, each take the form of flat metal bar stock. The modified I-beams result from removal of short portions of their upper and lower flanges to create central-web extensions. Bolt holes, or openings, that are provided appropriately in the flanges in the angle-iron-like components in a column, and as well as in the end central-web extensions in a beam, are employed with nut-and-bolt assemblies to complete an anchored assembly between a column and a beam. In such a column/beam assembly, the column and beam directly engage one another through a frictional interface wherein the level of frictional engagement is nut-and-bolt adjustable.
With respect to such a column/beam interconnection, the lower-most opening provided in an I-beam""s web-end projection takes the form of an open-bottomed hook which, during quick, preliminary assembly of a frame structure, extends into the open, or recessed, region between flanges in a column. Under the influence of gravity, the downwardly exposed and facing hook catches and seats onto a preliminarily entered nut-and-bolt assembly, wherein the bolt""s shank extends across and spans the space between a pair of flanges to act as a catch on which this hook can seat and become gravity-set. Such seating quickly introduces preliminary stabilization in a frame being assembled, and also acts to index the proper relative positions of columns and beams.
Modifications to this preferred form of the invention are recognized, and are possible in certain applications. For example, columns might be formed with three rather than four elongate components. With respect to a column having just three such components, the included angles between legs in these elements, progressing circularly about the column""s long axis, might be 120xc2x0-120xc2x0-120xc2x0, 135xc2x0-135xc2x0-90xc2x0, or 180xc2x0-90xc2x0-90xc2x0. Illustrations of these arrangements, which are not exhaustive, are illustrated herein.
Another modification area involves the configuration and structure of a cross-brace. Such a configuration could, for example, take the form of a right-angle angle iron, of a tubular element, or of a welded assembly of a flat plate and an angle iron. Illustrations of theses configurations while not exhaustive, are also provided herein.
While different lengths of component-assembled columns can be made in accordance with the invention, such lengths being principally a matter of designer choice, two different column lengths are specifically shown and discussed herein. The principal one of these lengths characterizes a column having a length which is basically the height-dimension of two typical stories in a multi-story building. The other length characterizes a column having a length of approximately of one such story height. The individual columns are stacked end-for-end to create elongate upright column stacks that define an overall building-frame height.
According to one interesting feature of the invention, where two stacked columns abut end-to-end, this abutment exists essentially at the location of one of the floor heights intended in the final building. At this location, and according to a special feature of the present invention, a direct structural splice is created between such end-contacting, stacked columns, such a splice being established through the nut-and-bolt connected end extension of the central web in a beam. Thus, structural connections between beams and columns act, according to the invention, as connective splices or joints between adjacent, stacked columns. The amount of tightness introduced into the splice-related nut-and-bolt assemblies controls the level of frictional engagement present there between beam and column.
Another interesting feature of the invention involves a unique way for introducing vertical-plane cross-bracing in various upright rectangles of space that are spanned by a pair of vertically spaced beams, and by a pair of horizontally spaced columns. While different specific components can be used to act as cross-bracing structure, one form that is particularly useful, and which is illustrated herein, is that of conventional steel flat bar stock which crosses, and thus braces, such a space. Opposite ends of such bar stock are bolted in place in the recesses between confronting flanges of the angle-iron-like components in the columns.
As will become apparent from the description in detail which follows below, taken along with the accompanying drawings, forces which are exerted and transmitted between columns and beams in a building structure formed in accordance with the present invention lie in upright planes which pass through the central longitudinal axes of the columns and beams. Accordingly, load management is, as is most desired, directed essentially centrally between adjacent connected components. Forces transmitted through cross-bracing elements also essentially lie in these same planes.
The nut-and-bolt, frictional-interface connections proposed by the invention for the regions of interconnection between elongate column components and spacers, and between beams and columns, allow for limited relative sliding motions between these elements under certain load-handling circumstances. Such motions enhance the load-management capabilities of a building frame structure, and furnish a certain helpful amount of energy dissipation in the form of non-damaging heat.
The detailed description of the invention now given below will clearly bring out these special offerings and advantages of the several facets of the present invention.
One further arrangement proposed by the present invention involves a cross-beam connection between mid-regions of laterally next-adjacent horizontal beams. Through-bore brackets bolted to and through the central webs of adjacent beams, and having some of the same features of the flange end regions in columns where splices can be made, allow for installation of elongate cross-beams which extend from beam-to-beam in locations that are intermediate a pair of columns.